It’s July, hot, humid, and it’s raspberry season here in New England. We’ve grown raspberries since we moved here in 2006, and we are experiencing a bumper crop this year.

We are picking two to three pints a day. We’ve put almost ten pounds in the freezer already. Raspberries in the freezer mean raspberry pie all winter long.

Raspberries are easy keepers. Plant, add a simple trellis system, prune the branches that fruited after the season ends, and start again next year.

Our row of plants is only about 12′ long, but it continues to keep us in fresh raspberries year after year.

Raspberries produce runners. I replant them within the confines of the row or pot them up and offer them to friends or fellow gardeners.

We’ve tried blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, Concord grapes, and kiwi. Raspberries are by far the easiest to grow, and a big plus is that deer, birds, chipmunks, and squirrels leave them alone.

The hoops in the photo are holding up netting to cover four small low bush blueberries. The birds pick them clean if I don’t cover them.

I have a long history picking berries. When I spent my summers on my grandparents’ farm up north, my grandpa and I would go berry picking several times a summer for raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries.

He knew all the farmers and the fields we could pick in. I’d wear a long sleeve shirt and overalls with a metal pail tied around my waist with a piece of rope. Glamorous visual, huh? But, those are great memories not only for spending time with my grandparents but also for the great berry eating. Let’s face it, if you are asked to wade chest high into thorny berry bushes the least that can happen is that you pick two for the bucket and one for yourself. Let’s just say, I was never too hungry when we got home. 🙂

64 Responses to Berries and more Berries

What a great harvest for you that will last all year long when you count the pies! I liked your memory of picking berries with grandpa. My maternal grandparents lived behind us and their yard was like a mini farm. Gooseberries, strawberries, and raspberries! – we’d just stroll over and eat whatever we wanted straight from the bushes. We didn’t even need those little roped on pails!

Those look wonderful, Judy. I remember picking raspberries at the house we moved to when I was 10. We had tons of them in the woods behind our house. I picked them every year for a few years, until I got poison ivy. After that, I only picked the ones I could reach from the end.

Poison ivy – now there is a topic I don’t hope to revisit. I am extremely allergic and it hits me hard. I avoid it at all costs. This is the first year, I’ve covered the blueberries, but I wasn’t going to let the birds have them again. I sunk some rebar in the ground, put the pvc pipes over, and stretched the netting over it all, security it with spring clamps. I only put it up when the berries started to turn. They are not ripe yet, but they’re getting there. There’s not a lot of them, but I’m planning to enjoy each and every one. Then, I’ll just take the hoops and rebar out and store them for next year. 🙂

Wonderful, Judy! We love raspberries but don’t have any of our own. The ones at the farmer’s market are rather expensive, but I splurged Saturday on two heaping pints, which are almost gone now. When they’re on sale at the stores and look good, I get some to freeze, too. Perhaps when we have a house of our own again, berries might figure in the picture. In previous years, we’ve picked blueberries while I was in France but this year, although I was in time for strawberries, they’d been decimated by freezing, so no berries. 😦

Raspberries are a favorite! Over the years in MA and NY we grew raspberries, strawberries, currants, gooseberries… Fruit picking is in our genes too – Marian grew up in the prime strawberry region in the U.K.; her mother’s yard had hundreds of feet of plants. As a high schooler I picked apples and plums at a nearby orchard as a summer job! Good Memories!

Oh my, you do have a connection to fruit picking. My grandfather rented a field where he grew rows and rows of strawberries, I hulled them, and my grandmother put them up in their very large freezer. I grew strawberries for a couple of years here and did pretty good, but then the squirrel/chipmunk population exploded and they ate them all. Great summer job picking fruit, and I bet it served a purpose by showing you what you didn’t want to do the rest of your life. Hope you are getting some fresh berries down there in NY. 🙂

I have enjoyed reading Bloomberg columnist Megan McArdle for years. She write on economics, business, politics and food – but this one has got to be her best. See The Parable of the Purple Raspberry Pie

Your raspberries look yummy Judy! They does not grow well on my garden soil but I have a bit of them for eating, my favorite is ice cream with raspberry. I liked reading your story of summer berry picking, as we say here: one to a bucket and one to a mouth.

Nice! 😀 My raspberries are yielding quite a bit this year, too. Perhaps the most, hard to say. I prefer the blackberries, but don’t tell the raspberries. 😉 I do not, have never pruned back my fruited branches! I may have taken them for granted? I will now and see if I get a bumper crop as well!
I want to try blueberries, but I think I need a new bed, or a good hole… I haven’t looked into it yet.

Oh, lets talk berries. 🙂 I like blackberries too, and have a friend who usually gives me a bucket full each summer. The raspberry canes that fruit turn kind of dark brown. If you cut those canes down to the ground sometime after the growing season, it thins them out a little and you are left with fruiting canes for next year. There are low bush and high bush blueberries depending upon your space. The high bush once they reach full height usually bear more fruit and are a little easier to pick. 🙂

OMG your berries look mouth-watering! 🙂
When the boys were little we had 3 raspberry plants in the backyard behind our garage and then an entire big field to go berry picking in up on a hill that was later destroyed for a stupid mall 😦

10#! wow, impressive from a 12′ row. Ours are doing well this year, too. We thinned them earlier, so perhaps that is why. I adore raspberry pie, but ours get eaten so fast, they rarely make it to the freezer.
Your tales of berry-picking mirror mine, esp. the bucket tied on with a belt. Ah, the good ol’ days. 🙂

Your raspberries look wonderful … I love your memory of picking berries with your grandparents .& yes you would probably be reported for sending a child into a thorny bush these days! .. I remember picking blackberries for an elderly neighbour & then eating her lovely blackberry pie .. Oh the joy!

Ah! Picking berries! Do many memories. My grandparents had a bush in their yard. No trellising. Just a big wild bush at the end of a fence. But my favourite berry memory has to be when my youngest son took his first step reaching for a high bush blueberry. Thanks for sending me back there.

Mmmmm! Your raspberries look so delicious, Judy! They are filled with such sweet memories, too! I love to put a dark chocolate chip into each raspberry and arrange them on a pretty plate for parties. So simple… and always a big hit at summer gatherings!
Wishing you a wonderful week! ♡

I know we’ve touched on this before, but it bears repeating that a garden grows memories, and it’s lovely to read yours and those of your blog friends. Your garden looks amazing, as do those ruby raspberries. And thanks for the laugh — I hooted when I got to your crack about calling child welfare.

Those look so delicious! Glad that you are getting a bumper crop this year. I remember going berry picking in the field / woods when the kids were young for black raspberries and then we had a few red raspberry bushes in the back. The kids picked them clean each day, lol!

I grew up picking blackberries from all over creation where I grew up in Tennessee…in pastures around home. I don’t care a thing about eating them, unless they are in a pie, or for their jelly, but I love picking blackberries better than about anything on earth. Blackberries are my favorite, but raspberries is right there. Then I worked 19 years at an apple orchard, and I LOVED picking apples, plus we had strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries for a few seasons. What a life! I think it almost is something from deep inside, preparing for the winter to come. all I know is a got a deep satisfaction from it.

I have to laugh–we planted two raspberry bushes last year–we got them on deep discount at a big-box hardware store. And so far we have harvested 3 berries! I am inordinately proud of us! I have no idea what I’m doing–are the bushes going to take over?

We’ve always kept ours in a row which can be the length of your choice. The row works for us because we can pick from both sides. They do send out runners which you can transplant into your row, pot up, or just pitch. We picked three and a half pints this morning. 🙂 I’ll keep an eye on your posts to see how you are doing. Hope you enjoyed those three juicy, warm, berries. 🙂

I have delicious memories of picking wild raspberries and blackberries all summer long as a child. I swear they were as big as my fingers were. And simply delicious. What an amazing amount you have already in your freezer!

I remember picking (eating) raspberries and black berries when I was a little girl living on the farm. Oh I sure wish I could pick them now! I must admit to being jealous of your raspberries but you can be jealous of my tomatoes – they are out of control – especially the grape tomatoes. Good for munching while watching TV.

I love red raspberries the best of all fruits! You are so lucky to have this right in your own yard. 💕
I used to wear long sleeves with jeans and walk with my brothers along the railroad tracks picking black raspberries using our sand pails. They were better than blackberries in our opinion. They just were firmer and less squishy. I think birds were more likely to eat bites of blackberries too. I’m not sure, though. I haven’t picked fresh berries for quite some time now.
In Rockport (MA) we would go with our cousin’s on summer visits to wild blueberry fields. It was fun not to have to worry about protective clothing, Judy!

Different memories for different people! My father had a large raspberry patch and as kids we were frequently recruited into picking berries – and as you said, they are very prolific!! I HATED picking berries which eventually translated into disliking the berry. Today I rarely eat anything ‘raspberry’. They look lovely, but I’m happy to leave them.